The dullest franchises in the history of movie franchises. Each episode following the boy wizard and his pals from Hogwarts Academy as they fight assorted villains has been indistinguishable from the others. Aside from the gloomy imagery, the series’ only consistency has been its lack of excitement and ineffective use of special effects, all to make magic unmagical, to make action seem inert.

Perhaps the die was cast when Rowling vetoed the idea of Spielberg directing the series; she made sure the series would never be mistaken for a work of art that meant anything to anybody?just ridiculously profitable cross-promotion for her books. The Harry Potter series might be anti-Christian (or not), but it’s certainly the anti-James Bond series in its refusal of wonder, beauty and excitement. No one wants to face that fact. Now, thankfully, they no longer have to.

>a-at least the books were good though r-right

"No!"

The writing is dreadful; the book was terrible. As I read, I noticed that every time a character went for a walk, the author wrote instead that the character "stretched his legs."

I began marking on the back of an envelope every time that phrase was repeated. I stopped only after I had marked the envelope several dozen times. I was incredulous. Rowling's mind is so governed by cliches and dead metaphors that she has no other style of writing. Later I read a lavish, loving review of Harry Potter by the same Stephen King. He wrote something to the effect of, "If these kids are reading Harry Potter at 11 or 12, then when they get older they will go on to read Stephen King." And he was quite right. He was not being ironic. When you read "Harry Potter" you are, in fact, trained to read Stephen King.

For those who haven't seen it, I recommend a documentary called The Lobby produced by Al Jazeera. It's about how the Israel embassy in London lobbies against the BDS movement in England and is also busy smearing Corbyn with all the anti-semitism nonsense. You can find it in YouTube. An interesting watch.

god i fucking hate the spectator. of all the british press, i really fucking hate the spectator. it's the most smug and insufferable paper of the british right, not so mass market as the daily mail or express (and so not as comically gauche) but infinitely more reactionary, and that's compared to what is already one of the most despicable and disgusting press networks on earth.

Scotland can vary income tax rates a bit (but not bands? maybe. I forget) but at the same time it can't really do so if that means making taxes meaningfully higher than England for obvious reasons involving rich people moving their taxable address. (which is why Scottish politics are tedious and dull. Because they're still basically just running a civil service management department with a fixed-and-declining budget.)

look if you don't think its cool that israel has the worlds largest open air internment camp, combined with a forcible sterilization program deployed on any black jews who show up hoping to have a better life in a country that claims to basically be a safe haven and utopia for their religious ethnicity, basically you're a closeted fascist and furthermore,

rich people and upper class white people will act liberal and tolerant because they think there wil never ever be an actual leftist in power. But corbyn just stood up and was all like "alright lets do this" and now you see all the british neolibs tearing their faces off to reveal the bourgeois rat underneath

The Telegraph is worse than the Spectator. It combines the smug poshness with the gutter journalism of the Mail. But I hate the Guardian most because it pretends to be left-wing. At Christmas they printed this article on Rowling's HILARIOUS anti-Corbyn tweets:

He literally endorses the Protocols of the Elders of Zion in one of his books.

>"I strongly believe that a small Jewish clique which has contempt for the mass of Jewish people worked with non-Jews to create the First World War, the Russian Revolution, and the Second World War….They then dominated the Versailles Peace Conference and created the circumstances which made the Second World War inevitable. They financed Hitler to power in 1933 and made the funds available for his rearmament."

It's worth noting that the Harry Potter series is actually anti-semitic itself. Hermione comes down on Ron for repeating stereotypes about Goblins and Banking/Money (read: Jews and Banking/Money) but nowhere in the text of the series are these stereotypes shown to be mistaken or are Goblins shown to be likable in any respect. They are depicted as pure money-grubbing grouches and for Rowling that is a-okay, the only thing that is evil is Voldemort's and the Death Eaters attempts to destroy the Goblin controlled banking system.

The message is very clear, cynical exploitation is okay but any attempt to stop or change the identity of the exploiters outside of the market context is evil.